Coming
Soon!
From Common Courage Press
Recent
Stories
July
9, 2003
David
Krieger and Angela McCracken
10 Myths About Nuclear Weapons
Gary Leupp
"Pacifist" Japan and the Occupation of Iraq
July
8, 2003
Elaine
Cassel
Bully on the Bench: the Pathological
Dissents of Scalia
Alan
Maass
Nights of Fire and Rage in Benton Harbor
Chris
Floyd
Troubled Sleep: Getting Used to the American Gulag
Linda
S. Heard
America's Kangaroo Justice
Brian
Cloughley
They Tell Lies to Nodders
Charles
Sullivan
Bush the Christian?
Saul
Landau
The Intelligence Culture in the National Security Age
Website
of the Day
Occupation Watch
July
7, 2003
William
Blum
The Anti-Empire Report
Harvey
Wasserman
The Nuke with a Hole in Its Head
Ramzy
Baroud
Peace for All the Wrong Reasons
Simon
Jones
What Progressives Should Think About
Iran
Lesley
McCulloch
Fear, Pain and Shame in Aceh
Uri
Avnery
The Draw
Steve
Perry
Bush's Wars Web Log 7/3
July
4 / 6, 2003
Patrick
Cockburn
Dead on the Fourth of July
Frederick
Douglass
What is Freedom to a Slave?
Martha
Honey
Bush and Africa: Racism, Exploitation
and Neglect
Jeffrey
St. Clair
The Rat in the Grain: Amstutz and
the Looting of Iraqi Agriculture
Standard
Schaefer
Rule by Fed: Anyone But Greenspan in 2004
Lenni Brenner
Jefferson is for Today
Elaine
Cassel
Fucking Furious on the Fourth
Ben Tripp
How Free Are We?
Wayne
Madsen
A Sad Independence Day
John Stanton
Happy Birthday, America! 227 Years of War
Jim
Lobe
Bush's Surreal AIDS Appointment
John Blair
Return to Marble Hill: Indiana's Rusting Nuke
Lisa
Walsh Thomas
Heavy Reckoning at Qaim
David Vest
Wake Up and Smell the Dynamite
Adam
Engel
Queer as Grass
Poets'
Basement
Christian, Witherup, Albert & St. Clair
Website
of the Weekend
The Lipstick Librarian
July
3, 2003
Patrick
W. Gavin
The Meaning of Gettysburg
Thomas
W. Croft
There Was a Reason They Called It the Casino Economy
David
Lindorff
Outlawing Subversives: Hong Kong
and the US
John
Chuckman
Lessons from the American Revolution
Jackson
Thoreau
New Far-Right Scheme: Impeach Supreme Court Justices
Stan
Goff
"Bring 'Em On?": a Former
Special Forces Soldier Responds to Bush's Invitation for Iraqis
to Attack US Troops
Steve
Perry
Bush's Wars Web Log 7/3
July 2, 2003
Diane
Christian
Good Killing and Bad Killing
Richard
Falk
After Iraq, Does UN War Prevention Have a Future?
Mokhiber
/ Weissman
Bush Administration: Causing Repetitive Stress
Justin
Podur
Uribe's Onslaught Across Colombia
Reuven
Kaviner
Prosecuting Ben-Artzi, the Refusenik
Steve
Perry
Bush's Wars Web Log 7/2
July
1, 2003
Sasan
Fayamanesh
Weapon of Choice: Nukes, Israel and
Iran
Elaine
Cassel
Sex and the Supreme Moralizer: Scalia
and the Sodomy Cops
Susan
Block
A Love Supreme: Our Assholes Belong
to Ourselves
Bill
Glahn
RIAA Watch: No, No Bono
David Lindorff
Weapons in Search of a Name
Gary
Leupp
Occupation, Resistance and the Plight of the GIs
Steve
Perry
Bush's Wars Web Log 7/1
June
30, 2003
Karyn
Strickler
The Do-Nothings: an Exposé
of Progressive Politics in America
Col. Dan
Smith
The Occupation of Iraq: Descending into the Quagmire
Tim
Wise
Race and Destruction in Black and White
Neve Gordon
The Roadmap and the Wall
Chris
Floyd
The Revelation of St. George: "God Told Me to Strike Saddam"
Elaine
Cassel
Kentucky Woman
Uri
Avnery
Hope in Dark Times
Steve
Perry
Bush's Wars Web Log 6/30
Website
of the Day
Bush El Hombre
June
28 / 29, 2003
M.
Shahid Alam
Bernard Lewis: Scholarship or Sophistry?
Jeffrey
St. Clair
Meet Steven Griles: Big Oil's Inside
Man
Laura
Carlsen
Democracy's Future: From the Polls or the Populace?
Alan Maass
You Call These Democrats an Alternative?
C.Y.
Gopinath
Bush and Kindergarten
Noah Leavitt
Bush, the Death Penalty and International Law
Joanne
Mariner
Rehnquist Family Values
Ignacio
Chapela
Tenure, Censorship and Biotech at Berkeley
Bob
Scowcroft
Bush's Squeeze on Organic Farmers
Jon Brown
Tom Delay: "I am the Government"
Kam
Zarrabi
Keep Your Hands Off Iran, Please!
Ron Jacobs
Big Bill Broonzy's Conversation with the Blues
Julie
Hilden
Fear Factor: Art, Terror and the First Amendment
Adrien
Rain Burke
The Anarchists' Wedding Guide
Adam
Engel
US Troops Outta Times Square
Poets'
Basement
Witherup, Guthrie, Albert, Hamod
June
27, 2003
Jason
Leopold
CIA: Seven Months Prior to 9/11 Iraq
Posed No Threat to US
David
Vest
Supreme Silence: Bush's Bunker-Hunker
David
Lindorff
The Catch and Release of "Comical
Ali"
Ray McGovern
Cheney, Forgery and the CIA
Steve
Perry
Bush's Wars Web Log 6/26
Website
of the Day
John Kerry, Teresa Heinz & Ken Lay: The Politics of Hypocrisy
June
26, 2003
Sen.
Robert Byrd
The Road of Cover-Up is a Road to Ruin
Jason
Leopold
Wolfowitz Instructed the CIA to Investigate
Hans Blix
Paul
de Rooij
Ambient Death in Palestine
Chris Floyd
Mass Graves and Burned Meat in Bush's New Iraq
Elaine
Cassel
Wolfowitz as Lord High Executioner
CounterPunch
Wire
Musicians Unite Against Sweatshops
Sheldon
Hull
Squatting in Mansions
Ben Tripp
A Guide to Hating Almost Anyone
Uri
Avnery
The Best Show in Town
Steve
Perry
Bush's Wars Web Log 6/25
Website
of the Day
Ordinary Vistas:
The Photographs of Kurt Nimmo
June
25, 2003
Bruce
Jackson
Buffalo Cops Wage War on Pedal Pushers
Mickey
Z.
The New Dark Ages
David Lindorff
Indonesia's War on Journalists
Dan
Bacher
Butterflies and Farmworkers Confront USDA and Riot Cops
Adam Federman
"Success is Not the Issue Here"
Elaine
Cassel
"Ain't No Justice": Fed Judge Quits, Assails Sentencing
Guidelines
Bill Kauffman
My America vs. the Empire
Steve
Perry
Bush's Wars Web Log 6/25
Website
of the Day
You Are Being Watched:
Elevator Moods
June
24, 2003
Elaine
Cassel
Supreme Indemnity
Holocaust Denial at the High Court
Roya
Monajem
A Message from Tehran: Is It Worth
It to Risk One's Life?
John
Chuckman
The Real Clash of Civilizations
David Lindorff
WMD Damage Control at the Times
Steve
Perry
Bush's Wars Web Log 6/24
June
23, 2003
Marc
Pritzke
Washington Lied: an Interview with
Ray McGovern
Conn
Hallinan
The Consistency of Sharon
Wayne Madsen
Commercials, Disney & Amistad
Edward
Said
The Meaning of Rachel Corrie
Steve Perry
Bush's Wars Web Log 6/23
June
21 / 22, 2003
Alexander
Cockburn
My Life as a Rabbi
William
A. Cook
The Scourge of Hopelessness
Standard
Schaefer
The Wages of Terror: an Interview with R.T. Naylor
Ron Jacobs
US Prisons as Strategic Hamlets
Harry
Browne
The Pitstop Ploughshares
Lawrence
Magnuson
WMD: The Most Dangerous Game
Harold
Gould
Saddam and the WMD Mystery
David Krieger
10 Reasons to Abolish Nuclear Weapons
Avia
Pasternak
The Unholy Alliance in the Occupied Territories
CounterPunch
Summer Reading:
Our Favorite Novels
Todd Chretien
Return to Sender: Todd Gitlin, the Duke of Condescension
Maria
Tomchick
Danny Goldberg's Imaginary Kids
Adam Engel
The Fat Man in Little Boy
Poets'
Basement
Guthrie, Albert & Hamod
June 20, 2003
Walter
Brasch
Down on Our Knees
Robert
Meeropol
The Son of the Rosenbergs on His Parents Death and Bush's America
Russell
Mokhiber and Robert Weissman
Grannies and Baby Bells
Norman
Madarasz
Pierre Bourgault: the Life of a
Quebec Radical
Gary
Leupp
Bush on "Revisionist Historians"
Steve
Perry
Bush's Lies
Marathon: the Finale
Hot Stories
Wendell
Berry
Small Destructions Add Up
CounterPunch
Wire
WMD: Who Said What When
Cindy
Corrie
A Mother's Day Talk: the Daughter
I Can't Hear From
Elaine
Cassel
Civil Liberties
Watch
Michel
Guerrin
Embedded Photographer Says: "I
Saw Marines Kill Civilians"
Uzma
Aslam Khan
The Unbearably Grim Aftermath of War:
What America Says Does Not Go
Paul de Rooij
Arrogant
Propaganda
Gore Vidal
The
Erosion of the American Dream
Francis Boyle
Impeach
Bush: A Draft Resolution
Click Here
for More Stories.
|
July
9, 2003
Is the Media Finally
Turning on Bush?
The
Importance of Tipping
By DAVID LINDORFF
Tipping.
That's the new watchword.
When does the situation facing American
troops in Iraq deteriorate to the point that public sentiment
"tips" against further U.S. involvement and against
the Bush administration's policy of occupation and "nation
building"?
The signs, for American GI's and for
George Bush's reelection hopes, are getting grimmer.
Already 70 American soldiers have died
in Iraq since virtual fly-boy Bush prematurely declared the war
to be "over" in a staged victory rally aboard an aircraft
carrier off San Diego harbor.
A search for the terms "guerrilla
war" and "Iraq" turns up hundreds of citations,
most dating from about the middle of June onward. Some, like
an article on June 18 in the Detroit Free Press, simply use the
term "guerrilla war" in news reports as an unremarkable
and most apt characterization of the current military situation
in Iraq. Others, like an article on June 23 in the Christian
Science Monitor, use the term in editorials  warning that the situation
threatens to become a "quagmire," (another Vietnam-era
term that's returning to currency). Still others use the term
in articles warning that the current crisis is heading towards
a Vietnam-like situation.
Any way you look at it, there is a growing
acceptance in the media that the U.S. is not in control of events
in Iraq, is not being viewed as a liberator by Iraqi people,
and is facing mounting military threats.
The mounting alarm at this shift in coverage
seems to be greater at the Pentagon and the White House than
concerns about the actual attacks on American troops themselves,
though if those attacks continue to increase in frequency and
severity, that could change. For now, though, the Bush administration's
panic at the spreading popularity of the term "guerrilla
war" in the formerly worshipful national media is understandable.
If the American media continue to increasingly
portray Iraq as a dangerous hell hole for American soldiers,
and continue to play up the American body count each day, the
American public will quickly start to view this Bush military
adventure they way they came to view President Johnson's military
adventure in Indochina--as a disaster.
This shift in public attitude in Johnson's
case took several years to develop. But Johnson had several advantages
not available to Bush. First of all, he began as a hugely popular
president, having won election in a landslide. Second, most Americans
believed that America had been attacked in Vietnam. Few knew
or believed until years later that the alleged attack on an American
destroyer in the Gulf of Tonkin was a sham). Johnson also had
the advantage that he was sending American soldiers into a war
that he hadn't started (the Indochina conflict dated back to
the 1950s, when the Eisenhower administration took over the battle
against Ho Chi Minh's anti-colonial revolutionaries from France).
In Bush's case, on the other hand, the blame for any military
disaster in Iraq belongs unambiguously with him and his advisers.
This was a war quite publicly started by Bush, and it is widely
understood already that he started it based upon lies made to
the American public. It is his war to lose.
Why the sudden shift in the U.S. media,
from unabashed war boosterism to increasing skepticism?
The answer is simple: the continued killing
of American troops.
For the first time since at least 9/11,
the dynamic of the corporate media business is working against
Bush's interests. Top management at the media conglomerates may
still have a strong political affinity for the Bush administration,
with its anti-regulation ideology and its general pro-business,
pro-rich policies, but dead soldiers make great news, and the
news business lives and dies on ratings and circulation.
Viewers and readers eat up stories about
innocent, dedicated young soldiers getting killed in the line
of duty, particularly by nefarious guerrillas who shoot and run
instead of standing and fighting so they can be wasted for their
crimes. We are hooked on these stories because they get us angry--first
of course at those who are doing the killing, but before too
long, also at those in power who are putting our "boys"
in harm's way.
Add to that the growing awareness that
the reasons for sending American troops into Iraq were bogus
in the first place, and you quickly shift to a broad opposition
to administration policy.
All this could happen--indeed is happening--very
rapidly. First the media has to tip from support for the war
to opposition. That appears to be happening already. Then the
public will begin to tip, from support for the war and for the
Bush administration, to public sentiment in favor of bringing
the troops home and for punishing Bush for sending them there
in the first place.
Already, Iraq is at a point like Vietnam
in the late 1960s, where the government realizes that it can't
just declare victory and leave, because it's clear that when
U.S. troops leave, a new regime will take power that will be
strongly anti-American. The more American troops get slain in
Iraq, the less forgiving Americans would be if the U.S. pulled
out only to see those lives wasted.
That's where the term "quagmire"
comes in. Clearly the U.S. could have quit Vietnam any time,
but to do so the administration in power, whether Eisenhower,
Kennedy, Johnson or Nixon, would have had to admit to defeat--as
Nixon ultimately had to do when Vietnamese troops stormed Saigon
and the U.S. Embassy. The same is now increasingly true with
Iraq. The longer U.S. forces remain in Iraq, the more American
soldiers die at the hands of Iraqi fighters, the harder it will
be for Bush and his advisers to call it quits.
Hence the talk of sending more troops
to Iraq, in hopes of quelling the insurrection.
A president running for election during
a popular war, or a war for the nation's survival, can be hard
to beat.
A president running for election during
an unpopular war, and a war that the American public doesn't
even see as having anything to do with the nation's security,
is another thing entirely.
This could turn out to be a very interesting
presidential election campaign.
Dave Lindorff
is the author of Killing
Time: an Investigation into the Death Row Case of Mumia Abu-Jamal.
A collection of Lindorff's stories can be found here: http://www.nwuphilly.org/dave.html
Weekend
Edition Features
Patrick
Cockburn
Dead on the Fourth of July
Frederick
Douglass
What is Freedom to a Slave?
Martha
Honey
Bush and Africa: Racism, Exploitation
and Neglect
Jeffrey
St. Clair
The Rat in the Grain: Amstutz and
the Looting of Iraqi Agriculture
Standard
Schaefer
Rule by Fed: Anyone But Greenspan in 2004
Lenni Brenner
Jefferson is for Today
Elaine
Cassel
Fucking Furious on the Fourth
Ben Tripp
How Free Are We?
Wayne
Madsen
A Sad Independence Day
John Stanton
Happy Birthday, America! 227 Years of War
Jim
Lobe
Bush's Surreal AIDS Appointment
John Blair
Return to Marble Hill: Indiana's Rusting Nuke
Lisa
Walsh Thomas
Heavy Reckoning at Qaim
David Vest
Wake Up and Smell the Dynamite
Adam
Engel
Queer as Grass
Poets'
Basement
Christian, Witherup, Albert & St. Clair
Website
of the Weekend
The Lipstick Librarian
Keep CounterPunch
Alive:
Make
a Tax-Deductible Donation Today Online!
home / subscribe
/ about us / books
/ archives / search
/ links /
|